Thursday, April 24, 2008

There is a reason we are known as Lucy and Ethel--we attract trouble, mayhem, and fun like flies. Yesterday, Ethel left the library to go check on a keyboard in another computer lab. A darling child, the apple of his mother's eye, had decided to rearrange all the keys on a keyboard. Ethel decided to rearrange them--and had a technician in the room with her. The lab at this time was full of students and a teacher. Ethel decided to remove the rearranged keyboard from the computer to hand to the tech so he could rearrange the keys. In a previous attempt to guard our computer cords from our dear children, Lucy (me) had zip-tied them together. So Ethel needed something sharp to cut the ziptie. Ethel asked the students if any of them had a knife--they shook their innocent heads--and she told them "and you shouldn't tell me if you do". Lucy sat in the library, innocent to what was about to transpire. The walkie -talkie in the library office goes off--and the person on the other end says "I need a custodian to the computer lab to clean up Mrs. O'Briant's blood (aka Ethel)". Lucy is shocked and awed and totally unaware of why Ethel is bleeding in the lab. She calls the nurse--no answer--which makes her mind run wild with possibilities. She finally gets the front office--and finds out the Ethel is cut badly and in the nurses office. The unwitting tech, not knowing that Ethel should never be given sharp objects, handed her his Swiss Army Knife, she tried to cut the zip-tie--and cut her thumb to the bone! She had also cut the offending zip-tie, and she grabbed the computer keyboard, and used it to catch the amazing amount of blood that was pouring from the cut. (The students in the lab never noticed). She had run into the English department workroom, put her the knife and the keyboard in the sink, bled in there, then ran to the nurses office with her thumb wrapped in the brown, unabsorbing paper towels that only schools seem to purchase. She didn't call Lucy because she knew Lucy would faint at the sight of blood. Meanwhile, back in the library, Lucy finally gets a call from Ethel. The nurse is sending Ethel to the nearest Doc in a Box, and Ethel wanted her purse. Luckily, I had a teacher trying to sell us Krispy Kreme donuts at the time, and she took the purse to Ethel. Lucy finds another teacher to watch the library, and goes to comfort and joke Ethel about her prowess with knives. The tech who handed her the knife, is freaking out quietly, because his boss is Ethel's husband. Ethel is fine, required no stitches, but is walking around the library today with her thumb bandaged to some kind of metal thing, and she is suffering through the pain. She has found out that opposable thumbs are important--who knew you'd need your thumb so much! Ethel's statement is that she heard she had to give another state test, and tried to stab herself.

Just another day of Lucy and Ethel in the Library--you can't make this stuff up!